Never Ending Roller Coaster Ride

This place is like a never ending roller coaster ride…and you can find the biggest drops within the same days. The kind of drops that send your stomach to your throat and make you want to get the heck off the ride…or get the heck off this island that is in the middle of no where.

Well, maybe it’s not that bad. Maybe I would just like a break and then get back on…

I just can’t stand the constant “where are you coming from, who did you talk with, what did they say, what else did they say, where are you going now, what are you going to do there, who are you going with, when are you going to come home,” and the lack of effort and enthusiasm from the teachers. It drives me insane and just puts me in a bad mood sometimes. I still love it tons, but the smallest things have the ability to just put me in a ‘screw this’ mood.

I had a big meeting with all the teachers the other day to discuss their work ethic and talk about what their job title actually entails. I informed them that it does NOT involve: not having class because you want to go use your cell phone, sitting and socializing with the neighbors while they make cobra, bringing a 2 year old to class everyday, coming in 30 plus minutes late to class, letting your students run around free, or sitting in the corner of the room and not moving just because that is where the breeze is. It was a last minute meeting but I simply couldn’t hold my patience after Fancy was 20 minutes late in the morning, 35 minutes late after lunch and let her last class out 25 minutes early; and she took care of a screaming 2 year old the whole time she was actually at school, leaving periodically to feed him. Poor 4th and 5th graders. The kids here have the rare ability to love school – and to think that the reason they aren’t learning is because of the teachers inability to teach, or even care, makes me go crazy. I had a 5 year old complaining that we had so much time off for school yesterday!!! “I lukkun konan jikul. Taylorrrr etke ejelok jikul. Jouj im jikullllll. Jikul ej lukkun emman ippa.” (I really want school, why isn’t there school. Please school. School is my favorite.) I don’t think you could ever pay a kid to say that! It was so cute to hear – and it reminded me why I am here and took a bit of the day’s frustrations away.

The statement was perfect timing too! JunJun and I were biking to a random place in the jungle to hang out....just away from all kids…but I brought Jelina too because I love her and she always makes me laugh. The jambo was initiated by my frustration with school and the seemingly pointless meeting I had the day before (Fancy was still 25 minutes late). The PTA was supposed to work on the wall but all they did was eat instead. It drove me insane and I was just having a ‘need to get out of here moment.’ So I was sitting with Jelina thinking of what I could do to just go away and JunJun came up on his bike and said ‘itok, jambo.’ Perfect timing. Jelina hopped on my bike with me and we biked about 30 minutes away and just sat singing, playing and laughing on coconut trees and the beach. It was exactly what I needed. It’s the fact that that type of retreat is always here that saves my sanity I think. It can fix anything!

Now I am back and just hoping that I can get out of this irritable mood. When I am around some people I am completely fine, but then one person who I can’t stand will come and annoy me all over again – I think I have a hard time separating the kids from life and the classroom. The kids that are a disaster in class tend to cling all over me away from school and it drives me insane. It’s really strange having no separation of school and life; sometimes is good and sometimes its bad.

Community

I have definitely settled into a bit more of a life here. Still no routine and still get frustrated – but I feel like this life is normal now and not just something crazy and abstract that I have no connection to. It feels more like my home now and I feel like I am a true part of the community. I think a lot of it has come with my outgoing and accepting nature of their culture – but they are finally giving into the fact that I love Marshallese culture and don’t want to be “the ripelle.” They give me babies to hold, they make me do yard work, they always correct me when I do something ‘out of culture,’ they yell hi and invite me to come eat and talk every time they see me, and they aren’t scared to talk to me anymore! My favorite thing that everyone does now is when there are other ripelles here they always look to me to translate when they don’t understand what they are saying…ahah they trust/understand my Marshallese enough now to be able to ask me what other people are saying! I suppose the index cards next to my bed (still being updated) are paying off! I have found this new sense of community here and I am loving it. I don’t have to love everything about this place, but to feel at home and accepted is an important part of being happy - so it is nice to have that working with me right now.

As for the past couple of days – we had our three days of school this week and life pretty much continued as it has been. In school I had the older kids read books they have been practicing to the younger kids – practicing alliteration and speech elements – and that was a successful and fun activity. They younger kids loved it, the older kids got stuff out of it, and the teachers got off easy and didn’t have to teach their class…so it was a triple win situation!

I studied some more amimano and started making some bracelets to send home for Christmas. They may not be the cutest things in the world…but you all have to wear them! I jamboed on the beach with Jumina, Atlynn and Aribut the other night after beat until 1 AM teaching them kartwheels and fun stuff like that. It was so refreshing to run around on an open beach, with thousands of stars and a full moon, and just have simple fun. I love that that is my life right now. So simple…so unfeigned…so pure. Just life. (Well the environment is pure at least…maybe not the food.)

Last night I had the girls from grades 6 and 7 sleep over at my house…thaaaaaat was fun. Haha I haven’t had a sleep over like that since my 10th birthday! (With the exception of my going away one with kels and tit ☺) It was back to the ‘who can stay up the latest game,’ and I was definitely the loser. I really wish I had batteries in my camera to take a picture of it…it was definitely a site to see! There were 4 of us curled up on my sleeping platform area (3 side by side and one laying horizontal) and then there were 4 girls curled on the floor (2 on the orange float from Whitney!) and then two more little girls in the outside room sleeping on my mosquito net. We were sleeping Marshallese style to the extreme! We watched center stage, ate Oreos, talked about boys and did all the fun things that you do at sleepovers. The only non-fun part was the part when they all got up at 6 o’clock after going to bed at 2 am. I could have gone for another 5 or 6 solid hours of sleep! But that’s ok…I will make up for it today.  

I am more than ready for bed right now at 6:30 after we spent the ENTIRE day, and I say that with no exaggeration, weeding. We practically cleared the entire town of any form of weed…EVEN IN THE WOODS! We started at 8 this morning and at finished at 5 tonight with an hour break for lunch; and we did nothing but clear the jungle making enormous mountains of weeds and trees. (lots of compost material at least) Apparently everyone does it every so often and Ajuon pays the church $30 for it? I am not sure what the point of that is…but oh well…it looks nicer I suppose. For lunch….get ready for this one…we ate TURTLE. Yikes. I was a bit scared but to be completely honest, it was one of the most delicious tasting things I have had here! They fried it with garlic and black pepper and yummmm. Delisch. It is more on the chicken side as far as meats go, but it’s really a kind of its own. It doesn’t have a fish taste, but I would say it had more that taste than chicken…with the texture of chicken and its sweeter. That was a really bad description…so pretty much I just recommend you try it if you have the chance; it’s good.

Ok, that’s all. Tomorrow I am going to make the nursery for my garden!!!! We have all the materials now and the PTA is coming to help made the cement and rock wall on Tuesday. We have most of the dirt in, will make the beds Tuesday and are taking a field trip to the Arno farm on Wednesday. This is finally happening and I am very excited about it.

Things might just be continuing to move in a positive direction. We will knock on wood though, because you never know with how things go here.

Sick :(

Well…strep throat in the Marshall Islands isn’t very much fun. I started getting sick yesterday and today it is definitely full blown strep…nasty. Luckily there is no school though because of a rainstorm! Anyways, Melissa and I both had a hard day yesterday but made it better by lounging together listening to music and watching movies…very American. We made soup and laid snuggled in bed for a good part of the day – only getting out of bed to go use the phone when the rain stopped for a little bit every now and then. She was supposed to go home last night but because of the rain and just really not wanting to, she stayed again. I actually really liked that because I felt horrible and it was nice to have someone here. I had a pretty big fever during the night and Simbe and my mom took care of me – which was really nice. They rubbed my feet and put a cold washcloth on my face “massaging the fever out” as they said and stayed with me until I fell asleep. It definitely wasn’t like lying in mom’s bed when you’re sick, but it was still nice. It felt really good.

Today I woke up though with double the number of white spots in my throat and feel horrible. I think I will head to the doctor to get some medicine when the pick up comes – so I am hoping it does.

Melissa and I have been sitting plotting how excited we are to go to Majuro in two weeks. Its not that I don’t love it here – I actually don’t really like Majuro that might – but it is definitely nice to get internet and cold things and normal food for a couple days at a time every now and then. I like the outer island simplicity…but a little flare every now and then is never a bad thing.

Well, the next time I write will probably be from Majuro ☺ I hope everyone is doing well and I miss everyone tons. Xoxo

More Mail!!

Wow…another amazing day for mail! I FINALLY got my school supplies (mailed August 1st) and I got two more awesome packages from friends as home…it was phenomenal.

Melissa decided to come down today, instead of yesterday, and we had fun hanging out with Lin (the gardener from Laura farm) and playing in the lagoon today. Thank you to Whitney and Kel’s expert care packaging skills, we had an awesome raft to play on (which also now doubles as Melissa’s bed when she is here) and just had a fun, relaxing afternoon.

After lunch and playing we decided to take a jdik jambo to Arno to say hi to Francis and Agnus…who are now our Marshallese grandparents! (Don’t worry Bumpa, you’re still my number 1 grandfather!) By the time we got there one of the biggest rain storms since I have been here hit and we ended up staying and having dinner to wait it out. Melissa and I were the chefs and it was a delicious meal of spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread…what a treat. We didn’t bring any sleep over stuff though and had to go back..my family was expecting us as well. So at about 8 we decided to head back. This ride back was the definition of a true Marshallese adventure! There clearly isn’t much light on an island with limited solar power and we only had one headlamp. It was DARK. The puddles were ENORMOUS from the rainstorm and the side of the road was lined with nearly invisible HUGE hole used for cooking pigs. I was a bit scared at first, but after a while it just became hilarious. We splashed through mud puddles that were over a foot deep and occasionally fell into ones that were up to our knees…we had to get off and wade through the rest of it. I almost lost a shoe in one that was over my knee…but luckily found it in the mud. The ride that normally takes 25 minutes took us 45 minutes, but it was a hilarious ride and tons of fun!